LETTER TO GOVERNOR CASS. 311 



evincing, moreover, how Audubon was estimated by his best 

 friends : — 



" Philadelphia, September 30, 1833. 



" My dear Goveenoe, 



" I do not know when I have done a more acceptable 

 service to my feelings, nor when I have been just in a situation 

 to afford as much gratification to yours, as in presenting to 

 your notice, and private and official friendship, the bearer, 

 Mr. Audubon. It were superfluous to tell you who he is ; the 

 whole world knows him and respects him, and no man in it has 

 the heart to cherish or the head to appreciate him, and such a 

 man, beyond the capacity of yourself. 



" Mr. Audubon makes no more of tracking it in all directions 

 over this, and I may add other countries, than a shot star does 

 in crossing the heavens. He goes after winged things, but 

 sometimes need the aid of — at least a few feathers, to assist him 

 the better to fly. He means to coast it again round Florida — 

 make a track through Arkansas — ^go up the Missouri — pass on 

 to the Eocky Mountains, and thence to the Pacific. He will 

 require some of your official aid. I took an unmerited liberty 

 with your name and readiness of purpose, and told him you 

 were the very man ; and I need not say how happy I shall' be 

 to learn that you have endorsed my promise and ratified it. 

 God bless you. 



" In haste, 

 " Thos. L. MacKenney. 



" To the Hon. Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, 

 Washington City." 



" Richmond, Virginia, October (no date). Travelling through 

 the hreedmg-flaces of OUE species is far from being as interesting 

 to me as it is to inspect the breeding-places of the feathery tribes 

 of our country. Yet as it is the lot of every man like me to 

 know something of both, to keep up the clue of my life, I must 

 say something of the cities through which I pass, and of the 

 events which transpire as I go along. 



" At Philadelphia I of course received no subscriptions ; nay, 

 I was arrested there for debt,* and was on the point of being 



* One of his old partnership debts. 



